November 13, 2017

"Retail Tech Moves Fast, We're Moving Faster"

55 minutes

A Day of Days to Toot Our Horns! Future Commerce hit some amazing achievements over this year:

In just a year's time, you our listeners, have propelled us into thought leadership.

It all started with a podcast partnership with the Jason and Scot show.

Accolades for the humble:

Forbes listed us as one of the 6 tech podcasts worth your time.

Rated one of the 5 best retail podcasts for consumer brands.

Brian takes award for most things predicted:

Called Amazon's Whole Foods acquisition.

And called Amazon's Body Data acquisition.

The ghosts of future past: 50 episodes ago there was no:

Snap spectacles.

Snap stock, whole foods acquisition.

Google home.

Pokemon go.

Introducing Passive Commerce to you:

Wouldn't you know it: Study released claims passive commerce is the means of marketing consumer packaged goods.

Actual data is proving theories we've had for many years.

All Amazon all the time:

Brian keeps the dream alive: maybe swole Jeff Bezos is listening to this show acting on Brian's suggestions?

Conversational Commerce:

Scott Emmons, one of our first guests, called conversational commerce a fad.

If it's not a fad, at least it's overhyped.

Like VR, the enthusiasm outstrips the reality of the technology. Wait on it, it'll come back.

Remember drake bot?

Thank you to our far flung listeners:

We're going worldwide: Japan, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Spain, UK, the Nordic countries, Iceland, and even one lonely listener logging in from Mongolia.

You're a world wide audience engaged in making strategic decisions about the future retail technology you're going to use.

And you're using futurecommerce to make those decisions: thank you!

Our most popular guest: Nick Vu, Adidas:

Nick Vu explained how you need to tailor your approach to bringing innovation into your organization based on culture and size.

Amanda Manna from Lowe's Innovation lab:

Explained how Lowe's uses story telling to advance rapid innovation.

The answer is super powers. No really, Iron Man-like exo-suits. They use them.

Temper that with Sucharita Mulpuru's advice:

Don't do technology just for the sake of technology

Retailers can embrace basic ideas such as putting a marketplace on their website.

But Saku Panditharatne gives a more urgent view of technological adoption:

Tech is central to everything, so can't skimp out on it.

##Fang Cheng from Linc discusses practical transparency in bot customer service:

Unrealistic to expect bots to be able to do everything we can do on day one.

Be open and transparent with your customers when they are conversing with a bot or human.

##Brian Roemmele humorously tells us that we're making the decisions of our own destruction:

"Everyone who thinks they have job security, they don't. Nobody has job security any longer. Everybody is going to be out of a job."

##Jason Baptiste talks voice interfaces and how to harness "fun":

"A big problem I have with Silicon valley is that it's dry and not fun. Snapchat was smart to go into L.A. and do things that are fun."

How to get customers to interact with your products:

Products have to be fun and engaging and make our lives better.

Another Brian prediction? 2018 is going to be the year of entertainment.

Customers want to enjoy and be entertained by an experience.

Dazzle your customers. See episode 22 and our discussion with Amber Armstrong.

But don't knock TJ Maxx, man. The hunt is the most dangerous game.

Sears, on the other hand, that's the death of retail.

Stand out episode: Body Labs. Using innovative technology to disrupt verticals:

Episode 29: Body labs approach using their products and applying them in new and unexpected ways.

"If you could easily provide businesses with the 3D shape of that consumer...you could unlock this whole other realm of both shape based analytics and size recommendations."

Stand out episode: the last word goes to Caleb Light of Power Practical:

Episode 42: "You're not taking a pot and making electricity with every product... sometimes those super innovative products don't sell that well as something like an LED strip that you thrown on the back of your television."

"Even if you don't have super heavy tech products, you can still think of ways of bundling it or packaging it so you can make it a clean experience so that someone wants to come back to your brand to buy whatever's new."

Caleb embodies what future commerce is all about: Taking the tools available to him and maximizing them for his success in business.

We're living in the new retail:

Things that used to work aren't going to work anymore.

The new retail means constantly poking and prodding and finding new ways of doing things.

Find people that can interpret different data, and smaller sets of data, and come up with meaningful insights that direct your business.

You can become the new retail. Join FC Insiders:

you can expect more of the same in the future.

Expect more thoughtful insights, great interviews, and thought leadership.

Together we're going to build a community of retail futurists to help us bring tomorrow into today.

Remember: "The future is moving fast, but Future Commerce is moving faster."

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By Phillip Jackson, Brian Lange

4.9

8383 ratings